Unsurprisingly the events of last week relating to Google’s decision to perform a u-turn on its China policy are causing quite the media ripple, to put it very mildly. For those of you who have had no contact with any kind of news media this week (which is somewhat of an achievement in this day and age) the brief summary is basically that Google no longer wants to accept the degree of government interference that is a pre-requisite for doing business in China and has decided to offer only an unfiltered search service through it’s Hong Kong based service.
So, in the interests of following the extensive fallout from these developments (which extends into not just business and technology spheres but also into those of politics and international relations) here’s a quick round-up of some of the most useful and insightful articles and blogs out there covering this extensive subject.
A good place to start is Isaac Mao’s piece on the Guardian tech page, which provides an allegorical overview of the entire episode – very few concrete details but a good and quick way to get an idea of what’s happened with an entertaining metaphor. You may then wish to read a statement on Google’s blog for a more detailed account of changes to their operation and what the official reasoning behind this is. Finally this quick video on Youtube from tech journalist Tania Branigan offers a brief history of Google in China right up to the recent spat and withdrawal.
One key question for the future of business in China in general has been over the nature of the response of the US government in the episode, and indeed Google co-founder Sergey Brin has called upon the Obama administration to push for a crackdown on web censorship, not only in China but globally. The US gov’t have however wisely decided to attempt to calm tensions and ease the threat of escalation by playing down the degree to which this impacts upon US-China relations. Even if they had wanted to support Google, it would be largely impossible without the support of other tech giants such as Microsoft, Yahoo, and Myspace – all of whom have announced no plans to alter the nature of their Chinese operations.
While those in China once more suffer from a lack of access to the full range of reporting and comment that is emerging on the issue, elsewhere we are fortunately able to access a wide variety of opinions and analysis of which some of the most interesting examples can be found below.
1. Michael Arrington over on Techcrunch highlights some of the hypocrisy that underlies much of the outrage at Chinese censorship policies – for example, while bloggers’ rants can be found two-a-penny condemning the ‘great firewall’, we nonetheless continue to consume plenty of Chinese-made products every day across the Western world.
2. A detailed post over at Search Engine Land offers quite a thorough analysis of Google’s motives in making decisions on its China policy, and raises a number of key problems which undermine the simple good vs. evil narrative.
3. Finally, Timothy Garton Ash offers a broader contextualisation of how the entire episode currently relates to global politics and international relations, as well as an essential consideration of what the concept of the ‘netizen’ in the 21st century means following the Google/China events.
That’s plenty for now I should think – there is of course much, much more out there (feel free to post links below if you’ve come across something particularly interesting) and indeed it seems certain that plenty more will follow in coming weeks and months. As always, we’ll be keeping you in the loop with all major developments…
Dejan Levi